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Using visual direction in three-dimensional motion perception

Nature Neuroscience volume 8, pages 229–233 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The eyes receive slightly different views of the world, and the differences between their images (binocular disparity) are used to see depth. Several authors have suggested how the brain could exploit this information for three-dimensional (3D) motion perception, but here we consider a simpler strategy. Visual direction is the angle between the direction of an object and the direction that an observer faces. Here we describe human behavioral experiments in which observers use visual direction, rather than binocular information, to estimate an object's 3D motion even though this causes them to make systematic errors. This suggests that recent models of binocular 3D motion perception may not reflect the strategies that human observers actually use.

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Figure 1: Schematics of stimulus geometry.
Figure 2: Results and predictions for Experiment 1.
Figure 3: Comparison of Experiments 1 and 2.
Figure 4: Experiment 3 results.
Figure 5: Standard error of the mean for each observer for each trajectory angle.
Figure 6: Experiment 4 results.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank P. Dean for collecting some of the data presented here. The work was funded by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council project grant and an EPSRC Advanced Fellowship to J.M.H.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, St. Mary's College, South Street, St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland, KY16 9JP, UK

    Julie M Harris & Vit F Drga

  2. Psychology Brain and Behaviour, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle, NE2 4HH, UK

    Julie M Harris & Vit F Drga

Authors
  1. Julie M Harris
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  2. Vit F Drga
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Correspondence to Julie M Harris.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Note 1

Control observers on original task. (PDF 49 kb)

Supplementary Note 2

Control experiment: trajectory discrimination. (PDF 193 kb)

Supplementary Note 3

Individual observer data and predictions. (PDF 107 kb)

Supplementary Note 4

Real 3D motion, target moves along track. (PDF 58 kb)

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Harris, J., Drga, V. Using visual direction in three-dimensional motion perception. Nat Neurosci 8, 229–233 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1389

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